In today’s edition of Speaking of Justice the topic turns to the headline story of last week, the guilty plea of the “King of Torts”, Richard “Dickie” Scruggs.  In a week of amazing headlines regarding the likes of Eliot Spitzer or William Lerach, to our mind the most amazing story is this guilty plea of Scruggs to a charge of attempting to bribe a judge to rule in his favor during a legal dispute over attorney fees. 

In news from last week, the EPA announced on March 12, 2008 that WR Grace had agreed to pay $250 million to the EPA to fund the clean up of the town of Libby, MT., one of the most notorious environmental disasters of the last 25 years. You can read the entire AP news wire report by clicking here.

” Taxpayers have been footing the bill for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s investigative and cleanup work in Libby, where the agency arrived in 1999. Expenses total $168 million and another $175 million in costs are likely, said Paul Peronard, EPA’s Libby project leader. Sen. Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, called $250 million “a drop in the bucket compared to the destruction and pain our neighbors in Libby have been through.”

Asbestos came from the vermiculite mine and processing facilities, a few miles from Libby, that Grace owned and operated from 1963 until the site’s closure in 1990. Vermiculite was used in a variety of products and the asbestos was dispersed in a variety of ways. Workers carried it home on their clothing. Asbestos also ended up in the yards of homes where vermiculite was spread as a soil conditioner. Exposure in Libby has been blamed for lung-scarring asbestosis and for mesothelioma, a fast-moving cancer that attacks the lungs. “

While notable for it’s amount and the fact that at long last some measure of compensation and justice for the residents of the small Montana mining community is on the horizon, the facts of the Libby case and what still lies ahead really isn’t discussed in great detail in any of the news reports.  For perspective on what happened at Libby, the nature of this environmental and public health disaster we have turned to LBN’s Jan Schlichtmann, one of the nations leading environmental lawyers to discuss the case.

For today’s edition of Speaking of Justice, discussing the Libby Montana $250 million EPA settlement and what the future holds, click here.  

Civil Action Attorney Jan Schlichtmann joins Scott Drake on Speaking of Justice to discuss the huge surge in home foreclosures and the legal traps that are devastating thousands of homeowners nationally. In this very timely podcast lawyers and listeners can get a quick primer in the new reality of what happens in foreclosure or trust deed sales in the new banking economy.   There are huge traps for unaware or unrepresented homeowners regarding state laws on notification of property sales, legal notice and forced sale of property that are catching people of all levels of society unaware. If you are facing foreclosure, if you want to know what your legal rights are or what the pitfalls might be, this is a must listen podcast!

Click here to listen to the podcast on mortgage foreclosures. 

In today’s edition of Speaking of Justice, the daily podcast featured on The Legal Broadcast Network, Scott Drake is joined by Civil Action attorney Jan Schlichtmann to discuss on the landmark environmental damage cases, the Exxon Valdez oil spill. This infamous case is STILL being litigated, almost 20 years after the accident, as the argument of the punitive damages was heard before the Supreme Court earlier this week with a substantial risk that the entire amount could be tossed out. 

Jan, one of the nations leading expects on environmental damage cases, gives his unique perspective on this case, it’s history and how it has moved through the courts. If you are interested in environmental law, the Exxon Valdez case or are just a Supreme Court watcher, this will be a fascinating podcast for you to listen in on.

Click here to listen to the entire podcast.

In today’s edition of  “Speaking of Justice” LBN host Scott Drake is joined by famed Civil Action Attorney Jan Schlichtmann to discuss last weeks Supreme Court decision on the matter between the State of West Virginia and the tobacco companies. 

Many people and attorney’s are not aware there are still tobacco cases being brought against the firms that produce cigarettes for health and personal injury damage claims.  The West Virginia case centered on an argument to the US Supreme Court that a trial plan that cigarette makers claim will lead to unconstitutional awards of punitive damages had been crafted by the WV courts and they were calling for it to be striken. The US Supreme Court rejected this argument and cleared the way for sick smokers to seek millions, if not billions, of dollars in damages.

Learn more about this important ruling and it’s impact on the many individual smokers cases that are still pending in the court system by clicking here to hear the entire podcast.  

In the first of a series of podcasts on the important topic of preemption, Civil Action Attorney Jan Schlichtmann joins Scott Drake on Speaking of Justice to discuss the recent Supreme Court ruling in the Eiegel v. Medtronic case. This decision is going to be the first of two key cases addressing this contentious issue and Jan weighs in with his thoughts on where this decision could lead. 

Later this week several of our other guest commentators will also cover this topic, with an eye toward the pending Warner-Lambert v. Kent as well as the Wyeth v. Levine cases that look at this same topic from the perspective of pharmaceutical litigation.

This is a major topic in mass torts and state law, as well as an issue of intense interest to Supreme Court watchers and constitutional law experts, so if you want to listen to a wide range of opinions and thoughts on preemption make sure you are getting our audio feeds or stealing our podcast widget so you can place it on your site.  

Click to hear the entire podcast here.